Harry Stark (The Rewrite)
by mugglemomto1
Summary: Rewrite of my original story, Harry Stark. Takes place before Iron Man and before Harry Potter, but will mesh the two series together. What happens when Tony finds out he has a son, but not just any son, but the BWL? What happens when Harry Potter, a lonely orphan meets a man who never wanted to be dad? T for now. Rating may change as I get into more writing again.
1. Chapter 1

Lily Potter stood in the bathroom staring at the muggle pregnancy test in her hands. She had did the magic pregnancy test as well, and she just couldn't believe this was happening to her. She doubled check to make sure that the test did say what she thought it did. _Was it blue if you were pregnant, pink if you weren't?_

But Lily Potter knew that she was pregnant. She had missed too many cycles to chalk it up to the stress of the war. The test was positive, and that should be impossible, _should_ being the operative word. James had been hit by a rather nasty spell, courtesy of Dolohov, which made it impossible for him to conceive naturally. And with James being the last of a noble and ancient line, they were going to have to figure out a way to have a child, and they were actually planning on adopting and then using a family spell to adopt the baby by magic, after the craziness of Voldemort was defeated. Children was something that both of them wanted more than anything in the world.

She sighed, sitting down on the toilet, wondering how she was going to tell her husband. She had already confessed to the infidelity, _not that it was completely intentional_. James had been somewhat angry, but understood. She thought he had died like so many of their friend, comrades, and old schoolmates.

Hell, they had been married two months when he went missing on a mission gone wrong. Lily had thought she was a war widow, and just didn't know what to do. Her sister didn't talk to her anymore, _due to her freakishness_ , Sirius had went rather insane with grief, and blamed himself for what happened to James, and Remus had disappeared on a mission. _Though Dumbledore had promised he was safe._

She had no one, no one but Tony Stark. She had gotten in touch with him and he had made his way to the United Kingdom to stay with her for awhile.

Tony and Lily had met when they were both ten, and quite on accident. Tony's father had drug him to England for the Stark European Expo, and Tony had wandered off, leaving behind a "nanny." Tony had been an expert on not being seen when he didn't want to be seen, and well this nanny was somewhat of a lush, making it that much easier for him to slip away. Lily's father had brought his exceptionally bright daughter to the expo, wanting to spark her interest in Engineering. He knew all hope was lost on Petunia, as all his eldest wanted to do was be a housewife.

Lily had been staring at the newest concept car (her father had wandered off to look at the next display) that Howard had designed when Tony started explaining the schematics to her. Naturally, she hung on every word, asking intelligent questions, and keeping up with Tony, which Tony admitted later had been wicked. No one could keep up with the boy genious.

Just as they were going to the next display, a large crash occurred, and Tony and Lily were buried under the rubble of a huge exhibit that had been hanging about them. But, somehow, they weren't crushed. A shield had expanded around them, protecting them from the metal and wood that would have most likely killed them. Lily started gushing apologizes, and tried to explain how weird things happened to her sometimes, but unexpectedly, Tony did the same thing, explaining that sometimes magic and science were the same things.

A little known fact about him was that Tony came from a long line of squibs. He explained what a squib was, and that he wasn't actually a squib, but would never have enough magic to channel through a wand. However, Tony did have enough to protect him in stress reactions, or at least that was the way his mother, Maria Celeste Black-Stark, had explained it to him because she was the same way, except that Tony was more powerful than she had ever dreamed of being.

And a friendship was formed. Lily explained that she made things happen, and didn't always know why. Tony had correctly suspected that she would be going to Hogwarts soon.

Tony wrote to her all year long, and continued to write to her through use of owl mail, which he found ridiculously slow and had vowed to find a way to make cell phones work with abundant magic. He listened to her as she swore off James Potter and then listened to her go on and on about him. She listened to him as he went on about his one night stands, never finding meaningful relationships.

Then one night she got the worst news of her life, her husband of two months was missing and presumed dead. They were newlyweds, and now she was newly widowed.

Lily had called the only person she knew could be there for her during this time, Tony. He dropped everything and flew to London on the Stark private jet. He had wanted to take her away from England and the craziness of the war, but she was stubborn and wouldn't leave. She wanted to stay in the country of her birth and help win the war that had claimed the life of one too many lives, and where Tony could understand where she was coming from, he drew the line at staying at their small cottage.

They lived together in a penthouse apartment, mostly just talking about life, and just trying to get by without James. But there were times where late night drinking and philosophical talks about life would lead to them being more than just friends.

It was a complicated matter, even more complicated with James and Tony being related through the Black line.

Tony stayed with her for months before life in the States called him back, and they ended their casual relationship. She realized that she was using him to warm her bed and as a substitute for James, and she never properly mourned him.

Two weeks after Tony had left her to go back across the pond, James had been found.

Life had gone on, and Lily missed her period. She chalked the first time to stress, couldn't ignore the second month of a missed cycle.

She was two months pregnant.

With Tony's baby.

The banging on the door had brought Lily out of her daze.

"James, I'm pregnant."

He was silent for a couple of minutes, something that Lily wasn't accustomed to. James and Tony were both known to fire off at the mouth first, and then to think about what they said later. After several minutes of awkward silence, a big smile formed on his face.

"We are going to have a baby!" He shouted, and then he looked at his wife's face. "Lils, I know he isn't mine, and I know that we are going to have to tell Tony, but that doesn't mean I am not going to love him or her any less. You thought I was dead, you didn't go out looking to cheat on me Love. I will love you and little Harry forever."

"Harry?"

James smiled. "It just came it. It seems right though." That was the husband that she knew and loved.

"If she's a girl?"

"Then you can name her."

"You aren't mad?"

He took her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. "Shocked, mostly. Confused and scared, but Lily, I wanted you to have a baby, whether it came from me or not. Dolohov took away my ability to have kids, not yours. I love you. I love this baby. He is going to be my heir."

"You know, it might be a girl."

"Boy, girl, it doesn't matter." James hugged her. Lily hugged him closer, and all was right.

She just had to let Tony know. Tony, her best friend of almost ten years. How was he going to take the news? Tony had always told her that he never wanted children, in fear that he would be just like his father. From the months they spend together, she knew that Tony had severe Daddy issues and for good reason. Howard Stark was not father material, he was a hard ass that really did a number on Tony. She had wanted to turn her wand on the man several times.

Lily knew though, she knew that Tony would be a good father, no matter what.

She sent an owl to Tony, but never got a response. She couldn't believe that Tony would just ignore her, but there was no other way to find him. Tony was an extremely hard man to get in contact with the muggle way, and the secretary told her to send paternity concerns to the Tony's lawyer. She wasn't going to do that. She kept trying to send him owls through the public wizarding post office, but she never got any responses, and that wasn't like Tony. Sure, he thought it was weird that he had to answer through an owl, but he had always gotten back to her before. And with each passing month, James and Lily got busy with parenthood, causing the monthly letters to end, and James just assumed that Tony was running from responsibility.

No one would ever have to know that little Harry James Potter was the biological son of Anthony Edward Stark. They could live a perfectly normal family life, their fairy tale, as soon as the war was over.

Unfortunately happily ever after rarely occur, and 15 months later history was made.

James and Lily were found dead in the wreckage of a little cottage in Godrics Hollow, their son was hailed a hero.

And Tony lost himself in a world of booze and girls, never knowing that his son was being left on the doorstep of number 4 Privet Drive.

 **This is the rewrite I am starting to work on. Little changes here and there in this chapter, but there will be substantial changes in the rest. Original is still posted until I feel like I need to take it down. If anyone is interested in helping me, or interested in Beta Reading for me, I would much appreciate it.**


	2. Chapter 2

Harry Potter was staring out the window of bus watching the sights of London go by. He had never seen London, at least he never remembered seeing London. For as long as Harry could remember, he had lived with his aunt and uncle at number 4 Privet Drive in Surrey. It was a pretty miserable existence, but he could never tell anyone. No Harry learned that painful lesson early in life.

 _Keep quiet, don't whimper. Don't be seen._

Keeping his thoughts positive, he turned back toward the window, holding his second hand backpack close to him.

Today was eight year old Harry Potter's lucky day and he was determined to let nothing ruin his day, not even Dudley. See, they were going to the Stark European Expo, a once in a lifetime opportunity. The last time the Stark expo was in London was in 1992.

Harry knew all about the Stark European Expo, he had read about it at the free library. That is where he always went to avoid his cousin and his gang. Harry soaked up knowledge like a sponge. His favorite subject by far was robotics and mechanics. It always looked so interesting to him. He had heard about his grandfather being a mechanical engineer from his aunt, one time when he was cleaning the kitchen, so he supposed that he must have inherited his love of robotics. He had built a circuit board in school during one of their science classes, but Dudley had snatched it and took credit for it.

He wondered about what his parents had done. He didn't know anything about his mother and father. His aunt refused to tell Harry anything about his deceased parents except that they were drunks who were killed in a car crash.

Harry zoned in listening to Ms. Aberdeen give the last minute instructions to her class. Harry smiled looking at Ms. Aberdeen, who was his favorite teacher by far. She knew that he was a ward of his aunt and uncle, and that they really didn't pay much attention to him, so Ms. Aberdeen gave Harry little acts of kindness, like this field trip. She had stopped Uncle Vernon after school asking for the permission slip for Harry, and he stated he did not see the point behind spending money for Harry to go on the trip, so Ms. Aberdeen offered to pay, citing that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Uncle Vernon couldn't give any logical reason on why Harry couldn't go now, and he certainly did not want to keep Harry at home that day, so here Harry was, on the bus enjoying the sights and sounds of London.

And he wasn't going to let anyone rain on his parade. It was his first time that he could remember out of Surrey and he wasn't going to take it for granted.

Not even Dudley was going to ruin it for him.

He could hear his cousin boasting about how much money Uncle Vernon gave him for lunch and for souvenirs. Harry could only shake his head. He had woken up early in the morning and had hoped to pack a small lunch, but only had managed to hide an apple in his backpack before Uncle Vernon woke causing Harry to retreat back in his cupboard with only an apple for lunch. It was better than nothing.

He stood to leave the bus, only to be shoved down by Dudley. His glasses fell from his face which sent Harry groping on the floor for them.

He sighed in relief finding them and then scrambled off the bus after his classmates.

"Now I want everyone to pair off. Each one of you are responsible for staying with your partner. And then we are going to break off into different groups with the different chaperones."

Harry watched as everyone paired off, knowing that no one would want to pair off with him. Not that he could blame them. He was short, skinny (though not his own fault), with ugly glasses (yet again, not is fault), with knobby knees and clothes that didn't fit him.

Ms. Aberdeen looked at him and held out her hand to him.

Harry smiled gratefully and took it.

"I hope you don't mind having to escort me around the Stark Expo."

"Not at all Ms. Aberdeen. I am grateful for having such a pretty woman on my arm," Harry told her, flashing her a smirk.

She ruffled his already messy hair, looking down at one of her favorite students. She had made it a habit to review all the reports of the kids before they entered her 2nd grade classroom. Harry had been at the top in the beginning of his school career with the instructors stating that he should skip a couple of grades, but then it suddenly plummeted. She knew that something was going on with him. You don't go from reading 5 levels higher then to not knowing how to read at all.

The system was flawed. She had made Harry stay late one day, telling his uncle that Harry had missed to many days of school (which was true) but had given him a test he had supposedly missed. It was an IQ test. Harry did well when she had told him that these tests were not reported to home.

Well was an understatement, he was classified as a genius.

"Everything all right at home lately?"

"Yes Ms. Aberdeen," Harry replied. Harry had gotten walloped a couple of days ago for undercooked carrots, but he was able to function, and the bruises were covered by his clothes.

"You know if you need me, you can tell me anything," she told him gently.

"I know." Harry closed himself off, watching the presentation on recombinant DNA, asking intelligent questions at the end.

She shook her head and continued to keep an eye out on all her students. Dudley Dursley and his gang were at the top of her list to make sure that they towed the line. She shook her head as she saw them bullying a classmate close to the robotics display.

"Oh Harry, I have to run and take care of that cousin of yours."

Harry groaned, wanting to stay away from Dudley for most of the day.

"Stay by the genetics display and I will come for you as soon as I deal with Dudley."

Harry nodded, walking through the crowd to get away from his cousin as quickly as possible.

111111111

"Tony!"

Tony cringed hearing the sounds of his assistance voice cutting through the crowd. He was on a roll, a lucky streak, and had not played craps this well in quite a while.

"Here, blow on these for me," Tony told her looking over his tinted glasses taking a sip from his high ball drink holding his open palm out on it.

"Tony, we are going to be late, we should have been up in the air three hours ago, where have you been? You haven't answered your phone, you weren't in your room . . . Tony, this Stark Expo is important," Pepper huffed out.

"I know . . . now blow the die," Tony told her again.

She did, knowing that her impulsive boss wouldn't stop until she gave him an inch. Rolling her eyes she watched as he rolled doubles, which drove the table crazy.

He grabbed his chips, calling it a day. He supposed she was right, he did have a multi-billion dollar company to run.

"Pep, cash these out and transfer a million to the Catholic Ministries for me, put some in the Maria Stark Trust, and take some for yourself," he told her quietly. There must have been about a couple million in the pile. Not that Tony needed it or anything.

Pepper smiled, "I'm so gonna get myself a nice birthday gift from you with this."

"It's your birthday?" Tony asked, smiling at his assistant. He knew her birthday was last month, but whenever she was going to get something with his money she called it a birthday gift.

"Meet me at the jet in 10."

"Take care of those chips, okay?" He walked away placing a thousand dollar chip on the roulette table. He won, and she collected those winning.

"Thanks Pep."

She knew Tony would have bought drinks for everyone at the bar, but every so often, she would catch glimpse of Maria Stark in him. She had often heard around the off about how Maria had a kind heart and would dote on her son, but Maria had died before Pepper could meet her, taking out Tony's only positive influence. Obidiah Stane had stepped up while Tony tried to catch is bearings, but he did nothing to help Tony deal with his loss, and so Tony just floundered.

Sometimes Tony still floundered, but it was her job to keep him on the straight and narrow, so she squared her shoulders and got Tony on his jet.

11111111

Tony Stark stood right outside the structure that housed Stark European Expo. He had resisted for ages of coming back to London, thinking that Switzerland would be a better spot, but Obi and Pepper wore him down. Pepper had always wanted to see London (she was adopted by an American couple, but had found out that her birth parents were from Britain), and Obi had said it would be good for business. Obi wanted to score the contracts in the UK, or gobble up some tech companies that were start-ups.

Tony, well as for him, he wanted to avoid London like the plague.

Tony remembered his time in London with both fondness and disdain. His cousins James and Sirius were fun to be around, James' parents were both nice and accommodating to the squib side of Dorea's family. They spent summers together from 12-16, until Tony graduated from MIT and started drabbling in the R&D department of Stark industries leaving the wizarding world mostly behind. His mother Maria had forbidden Tony from going London after she was tortured by her sister during the rise of He Who had Way to Many Names.

Bellatrix Black didn't care if you were her half sister or not, if you were a squib you had to die. Like Maria, Tony had some active magic abilities (stemming mostly around self preservation and healing), but not fully active magical powers. Bellatrix screamed she was going after 17 year old Tony next. Maria healed, but had forbid Tony from going to London. It's not like he really had time considering all the other things he had going on in between MIT and other activities. The latest thought was that genetic mutations (as in mutants and the X-men) were caused by the faulty magic gene. He had read the report a couple times when his good friend, Hank McCoy came by to see him. Luckily for Tony, his magic was mostly now controlled and the accidental outbursts had come to a stop. But his crazy half-aunt was someone he had preferred not to run into anyway.

He wouldn't have gone to London if he hadn't gotten the frantic phone call from Lily about James. Maria had tried to forbid him, but Lily needed him. His cousin was presumed dead, and Sirius was mad with grief and on a whim joined the Auror corp to help hunt down the bastards.

The last outburst he had was when he found out that Lily and her husband had died. Tony had spent a couple of months with Lily, helping her through James supposed death. Lily had been a wreck, and Tony tried his best to help her through it. The death of his parents had been what brought Tony back to the states, he wouldn't have left Lily otherwise.

Lily had been the only person who never judged him or tried to be with him for his money. Lily was a breath of fresh air, much like Pepper was with him now. He smiled thinking of his personal assistant. Pepper was the only one besides Obi now that he could trust. Everyone was always trying to get a piece of him, but not Pepper.

At times Tony swore he could see a little bit of Lily in Pepper, but he never confused the two in his mind, no matter how alike they were at times. He looked across the expo watching Pepper handle the setup for Stark Industries. He would have never made it the last seven years without Pepper, she came to him right when he needed her. His life was in shambles, Lily was gone . . . James was gone. Remus, who he had spent many summers with, had informed him that his cousin Sirius was thrown into some place called Asskabin.

Tony shook his head, bringing himself back to the here and now. The wizarding world was better off left to defend itself and fight their own battles. He locked eyes with Pepper and she made her way across the room to him.

"How are you?" She asked him quietly as she weaved them skillfully through the crowd.

"Fine, never better," Tony stated putting up his party boy mask. "I could use a little bit of alcohol though, these things are always better with a little bit of whiskey, or maybe a lot of whiskey."

Pepper shook her head seeing Tony revert back to his public persona. It was quite rare that she would catch glimpses of Tony having an "off day."

"Is it sunny out yet? I swear Switzerland or the Netherlands would have been better. Did you know that you can prostitution is legal in the Netherlands?"

"Oh Tony, you know that you don't have to pay to get women in your bed," Pepper replied cheekily, pulling out a tissue to wipe some lipstick off of Tony's neck. He didn't even remember getting kissed, it was probably one of the fan girls that were constantly following him around.

"I bet you don't even know how that got there," Pepper said knowingly.

Tony shrugged his shoulders and smirked. He was getting ready to reply something petty and snarky, but a shock of black hair and green eyes caught his attention.

He scanned the crowd and realized that it was school day. Some of the primary and secondary schools were invited during the day to promote science and mathematic education. It was a worthy cause, but that meant he had to be around children, and children made him uncomfortable for some reason.

"Could you give the presentation?" Tony asked Pepper as they started to make their way to the main stage.

"Scared of a bunch of children?" Pepper smirked at him. She knew that Tony had an aversion to children for some weird reason. It was probably because he didn't have any of his own, and well, Howard Stark wasn't a great role model for his son.

"I'm Tony Stark, CEO and head of R&D of Stark Industries. I am called the DaVinci of our time, even though I really don't know what that means, what do you think that means?" Pepper shook her head and rolled her eyes at his rant. It was nothing new. "Anyway, I am not scared of a bunch of school children. I just don't like germs."

"We went over this at our meeting, and you agreed. Who better to talk about the advancement of technology than you? Besides you are a kid at some level."

He nodded, and was going to retort, when a commotion caught his attention. _Not again._ Flashes to another time pushed to the for front of Tony's mind as he fought to keep his stress levels down. Stress would cause his ambient magic to lash out for protection.

Tony looked around and saw a young teacher going to where the disturbance was, whispering instructions to the child she was escorting around the expo. The child looked like he could be no more than five with taped up glasses, dark brown (almost black) hair, and large green eyes.

"Tony?"

"Seems like some kids are screwing around near the genetic display. Who is our presenter over there today?" Tony asked, just trying to keep on track with the expo.

"Fortis Biotechnology," Pepper spouted off by memory. She remembered being intrigued by their new genetic testing technology. From what she could remember, genetic testing and genetic recombination was only some of their research. Much like OsCorp, they were looking into ways to help the veterans coming back with missing limbs and trying in trying to regrow missing limbs.

There was another company looking into it as well, but she just couldn't remember who they were at the moment.

Tony, for some reason, just couldn't take his eyes off the little boy with his teacher. The teacher had to leave the little boy behind to deal with who Tony could only presume was the boy's classmates. He saw that a rather large looking whale of a boy had slipped off, and Tony was getting ready to say something, when Obi approached.

"Are you ready for your publicity stunt of the week?" Obi asked.

Tony nodded minutely when he saw the whale-boy pushing around the small child.

If there was one thing in this world that Tony Stark loathed, it was bullies.

"Tony," Obi warned following his line of vision.

"I'll do the presentation after I take care of this little nuisance."

Tony crossed the expo, ignoring the calls of the fans and women wanting to get a piece of him. He had tunnel vision right now, and he knew he had to get to that booth.

"Dudley, just leave me alone," Harry begged, holding on to his book bag, walking backward in hopes to escape his cousin. He knew though that he was trapped. There was a huge machine blocking his path and Ms. Aberdeen was nowhere in sight. He closed his eyes, resigned to his fate knowing that there was nowhere for him to go now. Dudley had him boxed in.

He had forgotten the first rule, don't get boxed in.

"Freak, you stole from my kitchen again!" Dudley accused, ripping the book bag out of Harry's hands and pushing Harry into the exhibit. "Just wait til I tell Dad, he's gonna whip you good."

 _Your kitchen? Yeah right, like you could figure out what was in there anyway._ Harry thought darkly as his cousin advanced.

Harry knew, he just knew, he was in for it now. He fell back, hard against the hard metal machine, he felt his arm catch on a jagged piece of metal in the display causing a gash and he heard a crack. Harry heard someone running up before he let the pain in his head over take him.

Tony picked up the small child, holding him against his chest as he made his way over to the medic area. He started barking out orders, telling them to call of an ambulance. The kid had taken a pretty heavy hit to his head by the whale kid, and then another hit to his head as he hit the ground.

He looked at the kid, taking in his slight form.

"Tony, you need to go do the presentation now."

Tony looked up and blinked. He had almost forgotten about the presentation. "Yeah, Pepper, find his teacher and let her know what happened to him. Get his name, we will send flowers."

"Okay Tony." Pepper said, watching the medic work on the small kid. Tony looked up in the direction of the stage, murmuring to himself as he walked off.

 **A couple of scenes added here and there. Drop me a line, let me know what you think.**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Two:**_

Harry was pretty miserable. He had been looking forward to the Stark Expo and now he was going to have to miss it because of his cousin. There was so much to learn and so little time. He had wanted to hear Tony Stark talk about technology and his future vision for the world, and now . . . and now, he was stuck in a hospital bed. Dudley was always making his life miserable, and Harry just always had to take it.

There was never a time where Dudley wasn't ruining things for him. It was a daily occurrence, and he should have known that today was going to be no different.

Harry remembered arguing with his cousin. Dudley was trying to strong arm Harry's backpack from him. Dudley knew that Harry most have stolen from the kitchen again, and then Harry was shoved into the genetic reader from Fortis Biotechnology. He got caught on the reader and he hit his head on the ground. The next thing he knew, he was at the hospital.

He looked down at his arm, there was a long nasty gash on it. Another scar to add. The one that was most visible was the lightning bolt scar on his forehead that he has a long as he could remember, and other little scars acquired in his daily living with the Dursleys. Harry didn't have to be told by an x-ray that it was broken, he knew it was broken. Dudley had broken Harry's arm before, and it had felt the same way. He remembered all too well the smacking around he got afterward because of the hospital bill.

It had gone from a great day to a wretched, no good, rotten day in the blink of an eye.

He sighed, knowing that his uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia wouldn't be bothered to come out to the hospital to visit him, they would actually have to care about him to do that. All he was to them was an orphan, and burden, a freak. Hell, he did not even know his real name until he started school and he had gotten in trouble for not answering.

He couldn't let it bother him anyway, it would be a change of pace. At least for a while he wouldn't have to do the heavy lifting chores, but he still could weed the garden, vacuum, and clean the bathrooms. All those things he could do with one hand.

Harry knew it from experience.

The last time Harry broke his arm his aunt only gave him a reprieve from dusting and doing dishes as she didn't want him to break her fine china or break one of her precious Waterford crystal picture frames with her Dudley Diddykins in it. Harry stared out the window wondering if his mother and father had pictures of him in Waterford crystal pictures frames, or if they had kept his handpaintings as aunt Petunia did. She proudly displayed all of Duddykins work on the refrigerator, and whenever she got a hold of Harry's, she made great pleasure of tearing it in half in front of him and throwing it in the rubbish bin. Harry had drawn a picture of the four of them as a family. But that would never be. He knew he would always be alone.

Harry had a couple of his pictures tucked away underneath his mattress in the cupboard under the stairs, he managed to hide it before his aunt could throw them out, and she would never go into his cupboard. It was too dusty and full of spiders for his prim and proper aunt to be sticking her head in there for him.

His art teacher had praised him on his art work, and he had actually won a couple of awards for it, no that his relative knew or cared. Dudley was the next Monet according to Uncle Vernon, when in fact all Dudley could ever draw were rudimentary shapes and maybe some stick figures on a good day.

Maybe more like Picasso with the cube picture. Harry remember seeing that one day in one of his art books he was looking at in the public library. He wouldn't dare bring out the books to his Aunt's house, Dudley would tear the books to bits.

Harry laid there, staring out the window wondering if he could draw on his cast. At least this time he would be able to have a cast.

The medical intern came in, smiling at Harry, telling him he could have red or green for his cast. Harry chose red.

22222

Tony looked out at all the students gathered around to listen to him sing the praises of science and mathematics and to encourage the research and development on new ideas, but his heart just wasn't in it. He was detached and actually reading from the cue cards that Obi had handed him right before he took the stage. He couldn't focus, his heart was hurting, as it was sporadically known to do. His personal physician kept telling him his heart was fine, but his heart would ache every couple of days or so. The booze helped to numb this from time to time.

A couple of minutes before he took the main platform of Stark Expo, Tony watched as they loaded the small boy up in the ambulance and pull away. He hadn't wanted to walk away from the child, and he felt some kind of pull toward him, a protective pull maybe. He couldn't quite place the feeling, all he knew was that it wasn't a feeling that he had never felt before.

Tony spaced out for a minute, watching the ambulance lights dim, thinking about his cousins James and Sirius. James who was long gone, and Sirius in some place for killing James. He wanted to get up and go to the hospital for some reason, but he just couldn't leave the expo. It was one of his first big events since taking over Stark a decade ago, normally foregoing these type of activities for his own private activities.

Pepper had badgered him into becoming the face of Stark Industries again, and admittedly, he had let Obi do it for too long after his father died. Now was the time, the world needed Stark Industries to have the visionary at the helm.

He looked out into the crowd of little children, wishing that he was following the ambulance to the hospital to sit with that little boy. If he had a kid, heaven forbid, he wouldn't want them riding alone. He remembered one time when he had hurt himself in his father's lab and he had to go the hospital. Howard was away and Maria was in Europe visiting with her sister Andromeda. She was the non crazy one, if memory served him right.

He shook himself out of the dark place and shot a smile out to the kids and continued on with his speech about embracing science and math and letting imaginations run wild.

"Math and science are critical to research and development of medicine, robots and most importantly for the development of video games," Tony stated, getting a cheer from the kids. He knew that would get a cheer from them. Obi's speech was a little dry, but he didn't have the heart to improvise too much right now. Abnormal for him. He soldiered on, hoping to get out of there soon and to get to his London apartment to crack open a bottle of gin.

"My old man, Howard Stark, was not an easy father but he knew where to push me to excel." He stepped away from the kids and turned on the projection of Howard Stark, who would talk now for about 30 minutes.

Walking out off the stage, he saw the young blonde teacher speaking softly to Pepper. She was the one who was escorting the little boy around.

"Tony, this is Ms. Rachel Aberdeen, Harry's teacher." Pepper said introducing the two. "Harry, the little boy who you helped earlier today."

"Mr. Stark, thank you for getting to Harry so quickly," she told him. "Harry's cousin is quite the trouble maker. I had to call his parents to get permission for Mr. Fortis to run Harry's blood because it just wouldn't get clean without running it through the system, and they refuse to pay for any damages, believing that Harry is the real trouble maker."

Tony fumed for a couple of seconds, processing the information. He shook his head. "Please call me Tony. I will talk with Nathan in a little bit and see if there was any thing that needs to be replaced. I can absorb the cost."

"Call me Rachel. I know I shouldn't have favorites, but Harry is my favorite. He hasn't been shown much kindness in his life. From what he's told me, his parents died when he was very young. And from what I observe, his aunt and uncle are less than accommodating from what I can gather. They hen and haw over their precious Dudley, but pay no attention to little Harry."

She confided in him that Harry's guardians were the best sort and probably wouldn't pay for additional treatment or plastic surgery if needed.

"They always give Harry the bare minimum, if anything at all." Ms. Aberdeen whispered. "I should have gone with him, but I can't leave the class."

"Poor kid," Tony said. Howard had been a little neglectful, mostly because of his obsession with Captain America, but never purposely so. Maria had made up for an absentee father most of the time anyway. "Harry seems like a pretty special kid."

"Oh, he is." Ms. Aberdeen smiled, thinking of the kind-hearted child. "Harry was devastated when his uncle said he wouldn't pay for him to come, so I paid for him." Tony smiled, knowing that teachers didn't make a lot, and that this probably wasn't the cheapest of excursions, but she still allowed it for this special kid. He would send her something nice. "All Harry could talk about was seeing you speak. He had been in the library during his breaks reading about the great Tony Stark. His favorite article was about your MIT dissertation."

Tony smirked.

"He was very impressed, I'm sure," Pepper said sarcastically. "Tony doesn't need another fan."

"He is a really smart kid, but he refuses to shine in class." Tony put that information in his mental file folder. Probably because he couldn't do any better then his pig of a cousin.

"Sounds like I am going to have to meet this kid, I mean I can't leave my biggest fan in the lurch. Pepper, can you clear the rest of my day?"

Ms. Aberdeen smiled. Tony Stark was known for his intelligence and ingenuity, as well as his playboy ways. She never thought he would take his time to go visit this child. She hoped he would do it. It would make Harry's year.

Pepper pulled up Tony's schedule. "Nothing that I can't move or see to myself. Where did they take him too?"

"The Royal London Hospital," Ms. Aberdeen informed him. "It is one of the largest children's hospital in the UK." She looked out into the crowd and saw the Piers and Henry had started picking on another student. Dudley surprisingly was staying out of it. "Sorry, I have to go break up these hooligans again."

Tony nodded. "Well, if I am no longer needed, I am going to mingle a little longer with the exhibitors before I go visit young Harry."

Pepper handed over the list of exhibitors, knowing that Tony was going to hit up Nathan Fortis first. " Tony, are you sure about going to the hospital? Maybe you should wait until the kid is settled at home."

"Pep, I know. But Harry, I don't know, something about him has me wanting to meet him and know him." Tony tried to explain to her. It was hard to put the feeling into words. It was almost as if he just knew he needed to be there for this kid. "It sounds like his family is neglectful at best, and I know that feels like. I should be there, hell I should do more."

"If it is something you really need to do, I can put off your meetings until tomorrow. It was just something called Advanced Idea Mechanics, and really Obi can handle this if you want him too," Pepper told him, pulling out her newest Stark Technology pad. "Tomorrow, really is pretty much open too, although you should probably do the BBC interview that you have been putting off, also you need to go visit the London division of the R&D department while you are here. They have some exciting break in the Warrior missile, and you should probably start interviewing for the new head for R&D here. I have uploaded the resumes."

Tony nodded as he started walking toward Fortis Technologies booth. He wanted to ask if there had been any damage during the scuffle with the kids. He wouldn't make the school or the teacher cover any damages if there was any.

"Mr. Stark," a pleasantly stout man came up to him. "I'm Nathan Fortis, the rep here for Fortis Technology."

"You are Lionel Fortis' son. MIT 1999 graduate with a specialization in genetic recombination; next in line for CEO. I have heard great things about you," Tony said, remembering what he had read on the biographies. He wasn't an internationally known businessman for nothing. His father had several mottos, one of them was to know your colleagues. They shook hands briefly and talked about the new developments in organ and limb regeneration.

They were close, but Tony knew that they were a little closer. Stark Industries just didn't do weapons, even though that was where they money was. Obi had been skeptical when Tony had approached him with expanding, but in the end decided to let Tony have his fun. Now they did energy, pharmaceuticals, and medical research. Those departments still didn't gross as much as the weapons industry though.

"So what are you running right now?" Tony asked, keeping the conversation going.

"Some kids got into a scuffle over here, and I can't get all the blood of the spectrometer. So the teacher gave me permission to run it through the genetic tester. Just for fun, we are running it against some famous people. Bon Jovi, Prince Harry, you . . ."

Tony laughed, he had given Nathan Fortis a swab of his earlier in the day to test against his fathers. It was undeniable that he was his father's son. He was always careful with his one night stands. Nondisclosure agreements were always handled by Pepper in the morning, his genetic profile was actually on record at Stark Industries, just in case.

Pepper walked up, smiling at Tony. "Harry has been settled in at the hospital and is getting the best care and extra treatments that Stark money can buy. Rachel said the hospital confirmed that his arm was broken in three places, so he is going to need some screws and pins, and probably some therapy. They also found that he was severely dehydrated and malnourished."

"Have Jarvis . . ."

"I already had Jarvis hack and pull up the medical charts, its uploaded to the StarkPad now."

Tony nodded, he and Rachel had suspected abuse.

There was a low beep from the machine, and Nathan looked up surprised.

"There's a match . . ."

"A match?"

"What match?" Pepper asked, not knowing what was going on.

Nathan handed Tony the paper.

"Are you positive?"

"99.8%," Nathan reaffirmed. "Tony . . ."

Tony shook his head. There was only one woman that he hadn't been careful with, and she was dead. He closed his eyes, thinking about the little boy. He had been drawn to Harry. He didn't know why, but now he did. Harry was his son. His son with Lily.

Oh God, Lily.

His best friend, his cousin's wife. Oh God.

Those eyes were all Lily, the hair was all him. The boy had his skin tones and his jaw.

"Oh God," Pepper whispered when Nathan told her. "Are you positive, I mean this is new technology."

"He's mine." Tony whispered more for himself than anyone else. "He has Lily's eyes, my hair. I don't need a DNA test telling me what I am feeling, why I was feeling it."

"Tony . . ."

"Pepper, I just know."

"Okay," Pepper said, backing him like she always did. Tony never did anything without reason.

Tony took off, leaving the expo behind. Tony would hear Pepper in the background, trying to stop him, but he wouldn't stop. His son was in the hospital, and he needed him.

 **Send me some love, send some reviews.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Three:**_

Tony watched the city of London pass him by has his driver was heading to the Royal Children's hospital. He remembered picking up the child . . . _his son_. . . off the ground, it was as if the child had never been given anything more than bread and water his entire life. Tony shut his eyes, trying to shut out the reality that he was now facing.

He was a father.

Not something that he ever planned on being.

Howard was hardly an example of a father, more often then not pushing Tony away to what ever nanny Howard was privately screwing, or to Maria whenever she was around with him. Maria had loved Tony in her own way, doting on him, covering up his mistakes when Howard paid attention, but she often got caught up in the life of being Howard Stark's wife.

At least Maria was around at times, at least Tony had her when she was alive and he had memories of her.

Harry didn't even have that. By Tony's math, and his math was never wrong, Harry would have been 15 months old when Lily died.

 _Did the abuse start then?_

Tony, took a swig out of water, thinking through everything. He pulled out his wallet, pulling out a well worn picture of Lily. He had taken it long before the days of smartphones, there was a crease going down the middle of it where he had folded it up and stuck it in his pocket the day that he left England for what he that was the last time.

Pepper looked over at the picture, laying eyes on the woman who had always been in the back of her bosses mind.

"She was beautiful Tony." Pepper whispered seeing the almost auburn hair and green eyes staring at the camera. She was hugging Tony close. Tony wasn't looking at the camera, he was looking at Lily. She was wearing her wedding dress.

"She was a beautiful bride," Tony whispered. "James was a lucky man to have had her."

Pepper nodded, knowing that Tony sometimes just needed to talk.

"When she got word that he was dead and his brother, Sirius, was wounded, she called me. Needing me to get to her, because she didn't know if she could keep it together. So I came to her. Mom didn't want me to, England wasn't safe for our kind, but I didn't listen."

Pepper listened, figuring he mean Americans when he said "our kind."

"She didn't want to live in the cottage, and I had the brownstone that Mom was given when Gramps died, and so we lived there. Some nights, she needed comfort, and I gave it to her, I would have given her anything she needed and wanted." He scrubbed his hand over his face. "I would have given Harry anything he had wanted if I had known."

"Tony, don't beat yourself up, you didn't know. And now that you know, you are going to do the right thing, aren't you?" Pepper asked.

"I can't leave him with Petunia." Tony whispered. "I wouldn't have left any child of Lily's with her, even if he wasn't mine. She hated everything about Lily, and my son," he paused, growling a bit, "My son grew up being abused by that cow."

Tony got a look in his eyes, a look that Pepper was familiar with. When Tony got that look in his eyes, she knew not to get into his way, because when Tony got that look into his eyes he was a force to be reckoned with. He started punching some numbers into his phone and started barking out order.

Yes, he wouldn't be the best dad ever, but at least he was going to try.

Harry was trying to ignore the dull throbbing pain in his arm as he watched the telly. It was a rare occasion that he could just watch a program without having someone yell at him, and as bad as the pain was in his arm, he didn't care, at least he wasn't with the Dursleys.

He would probably be beaten anyway for landing in the hospital and costing them more money. He knew that he had free health care living in England and all, but they always said they cost them money because of having to eat out, or whatever else nonsense they came up with. There was no way Uncle Vernon was going to ignore the fact that Harry was going to cost him money. He kept a running ledger of how much money Harry was going to have to pay them back for his upbringing. It was now up to the tune of 20,000 pounds according to Uncle Vernon. Harry couldn't see how though as he was only feed the barest of scraps from their table and given clothes that literally wouldn't be worn as they should have been mistaken for rags.

Harry had heard it all his life on how he was nothing but a burden and a drain on their once happy family.

Why did his parents have to die? Why did his dad have to be a drunk?

Harry looked out the window and saw a star in the sky. His eyes zeroed in on it, and as he focused on the star, he could hear a kind male voice telling him about the stars, pointing out all the stars in the sky. He didn't know if it was something that he was remembering, or if it was something he desperately wanted to happen. He didn't remember anything from before the cupboard, no matter how hard he tried to remember his parents. _Did they love him? Was at one point in his life was he ever loved?_

All he wanted was for someone to care. Ms. Aberdeen was a god-send, but there was nothing really she could do, he knew that. Every single time someone tried to do something, nothing ever happened. Harry didn't know why, but nothing ever happened even though the signs of abuse were clear cut.

The doctor had mentioned following up with protective services again, but again, Harry knew that something "freaky" would happen and the constables would forget.

"Star light, star might, first star I see tonight . . . wish I may, wish I might . . . . have the wish I wish tonight, I wish for a long lost relative to come and rescue me from the freakin Dursleys," he muttered staring out the window at Sirius, the dog star.

 _Sirius_ , why did that seem so familiar? A long forgotten memory was trying to resurface, but it just wasn't strong enough . . . so it was quickly pushed back down while he wished with all his might on the star.

Not like it mattered, his wishes and prayers have never been answered before, so why would it happen now?

Tony stood outside the door, listening to the kid, no his son, wishing to be taken away from his family. His heart broke, and anger simultaneously flared inside of him. He peered into the room. Harry's face was turned away from him, but he could see faint bruises on his neck and on his good arm.

Tony had inquired about him, stopping the pediatrician and orthopedic surgeon. Both had little to say with him, as Tony wasn't listed as Harry's guardian yet. Yet . . . _yet_ was the operative word. There was no way he was letting his and Lily's baby stay with her sister any longer. The lawyers were working on it and an independent genetic testing lab had already confirmed that Harry Potter was indeed Harry Stark.

He remembered what Lily had told him about her sister. Petunia hadn't bothered in the eleven months that Tony had stayed with Lily to check in on her, even though he saw her send Petunia several letters asking her to come to London. But Petunia never came, and Tony had been the only one there for her. Lily was his first love.

Tony turned away from the door walking back into the waiting room where Pepper was working on getting everything they needed to claim custody of Harry. Pepper looked up and quirked an eyebrow.

"You weren't very long with him," Pepper looked up. She noted his appearance and knew that this had rattled him.

"Didn't make it in there yet," Tony looked down at the ground and ran his hand through his hair.

"Did the famous Tony Stark, the Merchant of Death, the Davinci of our Time, get scared of a little boy?" Pepper teased him a bit, trying to get her boss to loosen up a bit. She had seen him rattled before, but nothing like this.

"Pep, I'm not any of those things right now. I'm just Tony."

Pepper put down the tablet and stood up walking over to her boss.

"What am I going to do Pep?" He looked down, not feeling like the secure, multibillionaire, arms dealer that he was. His father had been a horrible example of what a father should be

"You are going to go in his room and be the Tony Stark that he wanted to meet today. He knows everything there is to know about you that is in print, now let him meet _you._ You are going to sit by his side and talk to him. He is an eight year old boy who has just had a pretty rough day."

"I just heard him wishing for someone to take him away from the Dursleys. Pepper, he isn't just a normal little boy, he is at best neglected at best," Tony whispered, pushing down the rage that was building up just at the thought of his kid being hurt in any way.

Pepper stood silently, waiting for Tony to calm down. She had already started researching abuse and neglect and doctors who could handle this case. They were going to need help. This was new territory for the both of them, and she didn't know what to do for him. A first in the seven years she had been working for him.

Tony's stomach rumbled, a sign that Pepper had forgotten to tell him to eat. "Pepper, you didn't remind me to eat today. All I have had has been a bagel and an apple today."

Pepper shook her head. "I was too wrapped up with the ambulance and with Harry today."

"If I'm hungry, my kid is hungry. Call for a pizza, get a couple of pizzas, I don't know what he likes. I'm not going to let my kid eat hospital food."

"He might not like it," Pepper told him.

"What else do kids like?"

Pepper was quiet for a minute. "I don't know, I don't have kids."

"Jarvis?" Tony tapped into is AI from his watch, it was a prototype and he had no idea how far Jarvis would reach.

"Yes Mr. Stark?"

"What kind of food do kids like?"

"I believe the latest poll out says pepperoni pizza."

"Then that will do," Tony said as Pepper started looking up places to order pizza. It wasn't going to be as good as New York pizza, but it would have to do. Maybe when all this was done, he could go get fish n chips with his kid, or maybe bangers, or whatever food that England people where known for. "And find some good coffee, English coffee is horrible."

Pepper shook her head, infamous Tony Stark was back.

3333333333

"Hey Kid," Tony said, knocking on the door.

Harry turned toward him, his eyes going wide at the site of the famous Tony Stark coming to see him at the hospital. He tried to sit up further in his bed, but could barely move with his arm. _Why would Tony Stark be at the hospital?_ He looked at the man, and saw a small blood stain on his shirt. Harry frowned, causing Tony to stop in his tracks.

"What's wrong? Tony inquired, wondering what caused his son's face to go from wonderment to frown in the blink of an eye.

"I bled on you, I promise, I will try to pay for the damages to your shirt . . . it might take me a little bit because I owe the Dursleys so much," Harry started to ramble, apparently forgetting the rules that the Dursleys had set out, basically forbidding Harry from speaking about his home life at all. Tony heard something about 20,000 pounds, and shook his head through the absurdity of it all.

Tony looked down at his shirt, and saw a little blood stain, something that had been covered up by his suit jacket during his presentation, so nobody else saw it. He didn't even give it a second thought.

"No, don't worry about it. You can't help who you bleed on," Tony told him. "You had a pretty nasty bump on the head, and that gash on your arm . . . man it looked bad. I'm just glad I could have helped a little. How are you feeling? Are you okay? Are you comfortable? Do you need anything? How many stitches, and did they give you something for the pain?" The questions rushed out.

 _Ha Obi, I can do caring father._ Tony thought to himself. Obi was going to be besides himself when he found out that Tony had a son.

"It hurts a little, but I don't want to get addicted to pain killers, so I won't press the morphine pump. Did you know addiction runs in the family, and my father had an addictive personality, according to my aunt."

 _Fair assessment,_ Tony thought, listening to little Harry talk about the different pain killers and the effects of addictions on families.

"Yeah, and my aunt told me he was a drunk, and that was how he killed my mother and him in a car crash."

Tony shook his head, knowing that was far from the truth, but now wasn't the time or the place to broach this with Harry.

"Well, don't worry about the shirt, I'm like a billionaire, and own so many shirts that I won't even notice throwing this one in the trash," Tony told him, pulling a chair up to his son's side. He could see traces of him in his son.

Harry had high cheek bones and the aristocratic nose of the Black line. Tony had the nose himself, something that he shared with James and Sirius. Harry's complexion had a slight tan to it, left over from the summer, Tony thought.

Then there was his hair. Harry had unruly, dark brown (almost black) hair much like his own. Tony's hair naturally curled, and Harry's hair didn't, but he supposed that he got the messiness from him and the straight hair from Lily.

He was the perfect blend of the two of them.

 _Hell, he was perfect._

"Mr. Stark?" Harry's voice cut through Tony's thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you here? Not that I'm not grateful or anything," Harry rushed out. Tony could see that Harry was second guessing the question almost immediately. He reached over and grabbed the closest chair, pushing it close to the bed.

"Because you were hurt, and I care," Tony told him. "I saw your cousin push you, and I saw how hard you hit your head. When I was a little older than you, I got hurt at the expo here in London. I didn't get hurt as bad as you, and in fact I made a wonderful friend that day, but my dad was too busy to make sure I wasn't hurt."

Harry listened, sitting straight in his bed.

"I just didn't want that to happen to you, so I am going to sit with you for awhile, if that is okay with you. I figure we could get to know each other and have dinner together. Pepper, my PA, is ordering us pizza. Do you like pizza?"

"Never had it," Harry answered honestly. It had been a food that Petunia wouldn't often order, not liking cheese, but when she did cave into Dudley, it was something that smelled heavenly and it was something that he very much wanted to try.

"Well I hope you like it," Tony told him, making a mental note to stock his London home with food. It seemed like with Harry's injuries and legal issues, he was going to have to extend his stay in London. It wasn't a problem considering Stark had a couple of offices in the area. He could work remotely for a little bit. _Hell he was CEO he could do what he wanted despite Obi's wishes._

"Thank you," Harry whispered.

"So, tell me about yourself," Tony said, wanting to know everything there was about his son.

"I'm Harry, just Harry." He flicked his bangs out of her eyes with his good hand, and Tony saw a scar on his child's forehead. It looked like a lightning bolt. He wondered how Harry had acquired that scar. "There really is nothing special with me. I don't do well in school, I'm no good. You don't want to waste your time with me."

Tony felt the shift almost immediately. Harry was walling himself up again, something that Tony often had done with Howard whenever he thought Howard wouldn't approve of his latest inventions or thoughts.

Tony looked at his son, knowing that his son had issues from his relatives, know that he probably never had been shown much kindness from them at all. He reached out and put his hand on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly. "I believe you are special, and you are someone I want to get to know. Ms. Aberdeen could do nothing but sing your praises, so you have to be doing something right, and I don't consider this a waste of time. I like to meet the kids who could one day run my company, who have great ideas. Ms. Aberdeen said that you were really smart, but couldn't always show it."

Harry unconsciously leaned into the touch, not realizing that he was doing it. He had never been touched like this before. Sure, he had seen it with his relatives with Dudley and he had even tried once to hug his aunt, but for someone to touch him, it was almost too much.

"You are special," Tony whispered to him. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Ms. Aberdeen told Pepper and me how good you actually do in school, and how smart she thinks you are. It was hard for me to make friends in school because of how smart I was. I actually would act out, I failed a lot of English tests, pretended I didn't know math just to piss my old man off. He would just buy them off when I did that kind of stuff. Ms Aberdeen knows what you are doing kiddo, it's classic child psychology 101."

"Really? I thought she was just being nice to my face. You know, people aren't always what they seem," Harry told him. "But, of course, you would know that. You are Tony Stark, billionaire, boy genius. You didn't raise the stocks in your father's company by playing nice. I was reading that you are a real cut throat business man," Harry said, quoting Business Week. "You know what you want, and you get it."

Tony smiled, listening to him. "You read Business Week."

Harry nodded. "I wanted to learn about you before coming to the expo. You have accomplished so much, and you are still young. You Mr. Stark are my role model."

Tony scooted his chair closer to Harry, smiling at his son. He still hadn't told Harry what he discovered, and he didn't quite know how to broach the topic with him.

Pepper walked in a couple of moments later with pizza, and Harry's smile reached his eyes as Tony explained to him the intricacies of eating pizza, and the best way to fold it so it would not drip all over the place. It was hard for Harry to do because of the extra large pieces and with him having only one good hand, so Tony cut a piece in half for him, and watched triumphantly as Harry deftly maneuvered the pizza to his mouth. _He taught his son that._

A nurse came in a while later as they watched Sherlock Holmes on BBC, giving them the five minute warning. Harry had to go to surgery in the morning, and visiting hours would be up soon. Tony didn't want to go, but knew that right now he had no pull with the hospital while Petunia was named his legal guardian.

"Well, I guess we have to get going now," Tony told Harry as he squeezed his good hand. Harry was looking pretty tired anyway from the pain meds and would be out in a couple of minutes.

"It was a pleasure to meet you Mr. Stark."

"Please, call me Tony," he told Harry. "I will be by tomorrow after you get out of surgery to see how you are doing."

"You don't have to."

"I know," he smiled at his son, "But I want to. So I will see you tomorrow."

Harry nodded, and closed his eyes giving in to the pain medications.

Tony watched as his son nodded off into dream land, hoping that his son would feel better and catch some sleep. Tony knew that he wouldn't, there were things he had to get done, answers that he needed. He just needed to get started.

 **AN: Some scenes added. Some scenes deleted. Working on the flow of this story, and changing things up a bit. Leave some love, let me know what you think.**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

Pepper watched as Tony whirled around the penthouse suite overlooking Hyde Park. The penthouse was gorgeous with white leather sofas and an opulence that Tony had been raised with, something that Pepper knew could be attributed to Maria Stark. Since leaving the hospital, reluctantly and with her pulling him out, Tony had laser vision on one thing and one thing only . . . getting the lawyers on board for filing for custody.

She watched has he threw his phone against the plush white leather sofa in a huff.

"I don't get why this can't be simple," Tony muttered. "For God's sake, I am the child's biological father." Tony tugged at his hair in frustration. _There was no way he wanted Harry to go back to Petunia's._

His mind was going a hundred miles an hour. Lily was killed when Harry probably was just learning to walk, learning to speak. He wondered idly what his son's first word was and what his favorite subject was in school. He could tell that Harry was intelligent by the way he talked, hell the kid read Business Week and he was only eight years old. Most kids would have just read about him in Wired Magazine if anything, or just saw the gossip on the internet.

Not his son.

The reality hit him again that he was, in fact, a father.

He wandered toward the bar, pouring a glass of whiskey. _He could kind of understand why Howard drank all the damn time._ The thought stopped him in his tracks. He sure as hell never wanted anyone to compare him to Howard Stark – absentee father extraordinaire.

"Tony, it's close to midnight. No one is open, the lawyers can't file any motions until the offices open," Pepper tried to reason.

"Unacceptable. I am Tony Stark, part of what makes me, well me, is making the impossible possible," Tony grumbled.

His eyes were blood shot, more so then what Pepper considered healthy.

"What is unacceptable is that you are running off of virtually no sleep for the past . . . Jarvis, how long has Tony been awake?" Pepper asked.

"Approximately 72 hours, he has gone longer before, but his was much younger," the AI replied.

"I am going to have to look at your programming," Tony muttered. "Jarvis, look up all you can about Petunia Dursley, nee Evans. More specifically her address."

"At least take a shower while Jarvis is looking up this stuff. You are paying hundreds of dollars a night for this penthouse which happens to have a steam shower, you might as well take advantage of it while Jarvis is hacking whatever database he needs to hack." She looked at her boss, knowing he was stubborn as a mule, if not more stubborn. "There is nothing you can do right now, all you can do is wait. It's past midnight and we can't show up at their door this late at night. We need a game plan, and a way to protect both you and Harry's interest in this."

"I am not good at waiting. Do I look like I am a man who waits?"

"I am sure that your grade school report cards pretty much said, does not play well with others, suspected ADHD, and wiggleworm . . . but Tony, you are not doing anyone any good trying to get people to pick up the phone past midnight. If it helps, I will have Happy gas up the Bentley first thing in the morning, have breakfast delivered to Harry after his surgery, and then go meet the lawyers at noon. I already made the appointment right after Nathan supplied us with the DNA test. It was Crayton's first available appointment. I already cleared your day, all you have to do is be sharp an alert for Harry. He is going to be in surgery for three hours and in recovery for a bit after that."

"I hate it when you make sense." Tony pouted, putting down his whiskey glass. Truth be told, he knew he needed to sleep, but even in the most expensive suites, he had a hard time falling asleep.

"Somebody has to." Pepper threw him her patent, don't screw with me look, and watched as Tony turned toward the shower. She waited until she heard the water run before she addressed Jarvis.

At first she didn't know what to thing of the AI, but she could admit genius when Tony figured out a way on bring him online and portable. The AI was a great asset when it came to spying on the man.

"Jarvis inform me when he falls asleep, make sure he gets at least 4 hours. He isn't 20 anymore."

"Yes Miss Potts."

"Alert me first thing when he wakes up, we can't have him going after the Dursley's half cocked."

"Understood Miss Potts."

"Thank you Jarvis."

Pepper stood and headed out to the penthouse right next to Tony's. They would have been staying in Tony's mother's London apartment, but Tony wasn't sure what state it was in as it hadn't been used for years. Pepper made a mental note to have all of Tony's properties looked at sooner rather than later. She would have done it sooner if she had known about it.

She shook her head wondering how Tony was going to raise a little boy all by himself, but as Tony pointed out, he made the impossible possible, so why not make the improbable probable.

She got herself ready for bed, looking down at her StarkPad noting that Jarvis sent her a message letting her know that his creator had indeed gone down for the night.

555555555

Harry woke up, seeing the early morning light stream in. The night nurse had been very kind, making sure that all of his needs were met, making sure that he wasn't in any pain. The pain had lessened overnight without the use of medications, instead of a stabbing pain, it was more of a dull throb, something that Harry was very much used to feeling, and it seemed as if the dull throbbing pains would never go away.

The replacement nurse came in, looking at him. "Hey, it's time for a set of x-rays, the doctors can't find your other ones from yesterday and they need to make sure they are going in the right place."

Harry nodded, not wanting to kick up a fuss. The night nurse helped him into the wheelchair, not jostling him too much. He flashed her a smile. "I hope this isn't causing you too much trouble," Harry talked to her, trying to kick up a small conversation. He found that if you spoke to people that they assumed you were will adjusted and didn't tend to poke around in his business. The last thing he needed was a little bit of respite only to have a concerned cop or social worker showing up at the Dursleys.

They never tended to act well when people showed up unannounced. And, they always seemed to take it out on him.

He knew it wasn't his fault, he knew that instinctually, but of course it hurt. All he wanted was an adult to care.

But that would never happen for him.

He knew nothing happened in life by wishing for it. Look at his idol, Tony Stark, he worked for everything. Yes, Howard Stark may have built a multi-million corporation, but Tony was the innovator, and it was on him to keep his father's legacy up and running.

Harry sighed. Maybe there was a way he could get back to the expo. He didn't get to see much of anything before his cousin pushed him into the DNA reader.

He shook his head and a flash of determination coming over him.

The Stark Expo didn't go to London often and it may be his last time to get to see some of the innovating science before the Expo left in a couple of month . . . and he was closer to the Expo then he would be then when he was in Surrey . . .

It wasn't fair.

Life just was never fair.

But once, just once, Harry was going to make sure he got to do what he wanted.

He went willingly to the x-ray lab, knowing that people for outpatient procedures normall left their clothes in dressing rooms, and since Harry wasn't going to be supervised, and he figured that the x-ray would take awhile to get back . . .

5555555555

Tony strode into his lawyers office after having Happy drop him off promptly at 7:30 in the morning, an hour and half earlier then the office would have opened, but when you are a billionaire, money talks.

At least that is what he hoped. He couldn't stand the idea of any child staying with Petunia.

He strode in through the office doors, right past the secretary who looked a little tired, but honestly he couldn't fault her. He did make the office open early. She started the coffee as the lawyer ushered him into the office.

"I guess what Obi always feared would happen finally did," Mr. March said, closing the DNA file.

"You haven't told Obi yet, have you?" Tony asked forgetting that he hadn't told his mentor yet.

"No, I will leave the pleasure all to you, besides it is hardly my place with lawyer/client confidentiality," he replied. March had been a family friend introduced to Howard by Peggy Carter. "Why do you want him Tony?"

"He needs me," Tony answered simply, scrubbing his face in only a way he could. "I need him. I can't explain it completely, but when I saw him, even before the test said he was mine, I felt like he was mine."

"I have read the file, and started looking up the Dursleys. Frankly, you would be better off staying away from them," March looked at Tony's face, holding up a hand to forestall the interruption he knew was coming. "At least until paternal responsibility and physical custody has been granted to you. And as quietly as possible. The are awful people, and well will try to fleece you for parental support."

"Whatever it is I will pay it." Tony snapped. He knew logically that those damn people wasn't owed one red cent, but for Harry's sake he would pay it quickly and quietly.

"I am going to try to keep your name out of it," March told him. "All we have to do is take them some custody papers, have them sign it, and then have the judge grant you paternal responsibility. I assumed you can provide financial support and a good home for the child?"

"Harry," Tony sighed, "His name is Harry, not child, and yeah. I can provide Harry with the best home and support that I money can buy."

March smiled. "There is a lot of Maria in you."

Tony waved his hand, not paying attention, just staring out the window. "So me just showing up at their doorstep demanding that they just give me my son is a no."

March sighed and shook his head. "I would strongly advise against that. Profiling them, they would drag you and Harry through a lengthy process . . . extort you for more money . . . and prolonged exposure to them and the press . . ."

"And as much as I want to shout that I have a son from the top of the rooftops, that would put him with a target on his back for kidnappers, best to keep it quiet," Tony surmised, even though it wasn't his style.

But he was a father now. He would gladly pay the Dursley's any amount they wanted to keep his son away from them, but Marsh was right. Put Tony's face on anything and people tended to get greedy fairly quickly, but he wanted to make sure that Harry was going to be taken care of first and foremost, and he needed to learn to think before leaping, which wasn't his best quality. Tony sat for a minute, thinking as fast as his brilliant mind would whirl. He sighed, coming up with the conclusion he didn't want to acknowledge. Custody would have to be handled the good old fashion way, through the courts and hopefully with his name kept out of everything.

"Get everything in line. Speak to the judge about obtaining custody quickly. Can I at least petition for some kind of emergency custody given the abuse reports from the hospital? Is there anyway to keep our names out of it?"

"Tony, there is no way in hell we are letting that child out of our sight. We are going to get him away from that so-called-family very quickly. And as for keeping your name out of it, there may be just a way to do it."

"I'm going on a walk. Contact me when you have some news."

5555555555

Tony weaved his ways through the street, texting Pepper about getting the penthouse ready. He was going to need to prove to the court systems that he could provide Harry a home, and that meant opening up the penthouse. He hadn't wanted to use it during their time in London, but even he could see reason behind using it now.

Tony strode through the Expo, walking through the displays, looking at each one, observing different presentations. Most companies just highlighted their products, other's had presentations, others had interactive displays. Tony remembered always enjoying the display that he came up with, the circuit boards. It was a way to help kids understand the way the closed circuits and transistors worked.

It took the concept of play and science and helped kids learned.

Maria had fawned over it, but Howard didn't seem impressed. After all the man had built a car that hovered for 5 seconds that year.

Tony was sure he could make it work, but he never wanted to have anything to do with it. Anything to stick it to the old man, even though he was dead.

Anyway, circuits and coding were the future.

Tony turned, going toward the Fortis technology, wanting to talk to the man about the technology and find out more about what led him to his son. He walked up seeing a familiar face, and it wasn't who he expected.

A person who he hadn't seen in ages, and someone he thought had been lost to him as well.

Remus Lupin.

 _What was he doing working for Fortis?_

He started walking toward him when his phone started ringing.

 _Pepper Potts_

 _Not now Pepper._ He sent her to voicemail.

Tony was a man on a mission. He walked over to Remus, waiting for him to look up from what he was working on. Tony took a minute to look over the man.

The years hadn't been kind to him either.

Tony's affliction was alcohol, women, and parties.

Remus, he knew, was afflicted with lycanthropy. Shame filled the man, he knew from Sirius and James that the man had a hard life, that no one would hire a werewolf. Tony sighed, he had hoped they were wrong. He hadn't forgotten about the man, but he hadn't thought to find him after Lily's death.

Maybe if he had, all this could have been avoided.

"Are you going to say something, or just stare at me working, Anthony?" Remus' voice rang though the crowd. He tapped his nose.

Tony looked at the name tag he was wearing. _R John Lupin._ "Going by John now?"

"It helps to blend in."

"What are you doing working for Nathan?" Tony asked, curious about his credentials.

"Nathan gave me a shot. I needed to catch up after 7 years of schooling out of the county, I graduated a couple of years ago, and well, 28 is old in the tech industry. Also, Nathan was willing to work with my unique schedule."

"What do you do?"

"Genetic engineering," Remus replied. "Trying to figure out, well you know . . ."

Tony nodded, he filed it away to investigate a little further. He needed to focus on Harry now, not get carried away with a puzzle.

But . . .

Nathan walked up, "Are you getting ready to shut down for lunch? Please tell me Tony isn't trying to poach you. Good help is so hard to find, and I didn't write a no compete clause in your contract."

"Remus and I go way back," Tony supplied. "Like I grew up with him way back."

Remus nodded, shutting down the display.

Nathan handed Tony some more papers. "I ran it a couple more times, but . . ." Nathan stopped, looking at Remus. Tony looked over at his one time friend.

"Its okay, you can speak freely around Remus, I know he will keep my secrets."

"How is he?"

"Good, we spent a couple of hours talking last night, he should be going in for surgery, but I wouldn't know. The doctors won't tell me anything even though I am the bio dad."

"Oh good Lord, you procreated?" Remus snorted, not hiding his mirth. "James and Lily would get a kick out of this . . ."

At least Tony knew then that Remus didn't know that Harry was his child.

Tony opened his mouth to retort, but his phone buzzed again.

 _Pepper . . . again._

He sent her to voicemail again.

"Laugh it up Lupin," Tony mumbled. Firing a text to Pepper.

 _Busy._

 _Tony, call me now, it's urgent._

Tony shook his head.

"I have to make a call, sorry, my assistant says it is urgent." Tony sighed, giving in to his assistant. "Pepper, this better be urgent, I am kind of in the middle of something."

"Tony, well . . ." Pepper hesitated, not knowing what to say. After a second she figured the most direct route would be best with him. Tony did not do well with talking around things. "Oh God Tony, Harry is missing."

 **AN: If any of you remember the original, well you know that this chapter is a completely new. I just let the muse take me wherever. Give me ideas on pairings, how soon do we want to introduce Padfoot, also if anyone knows anything about the custody laws in the UK, let me know, or else we are just going to get what I can find on google. As always, reviews rock my socks.**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

The world stopped. He had only been a father for about 24 hours and he felt like he was already failing at it. He shook his head gaining a grip on reality, his genius mind running through several different scenarios on what could have possibly happened. His brain kept getting stuck on abduction, but there would be no reason for anyone to have taken Harry, nobody knew yet.

"Run that by me again," Tony seethed. "I thought you just said that Harry is missing. That almost seems impossible, he was supposed to be taken in for surgery this morning, it's now," Tony glanced down at his watch, "almost noon. Why weren't we informed, how long has he been missing? What if his no good relatives got him?"

Tony started panicking, something that he was not accustomed too. Remus looked at Tony in concern. He was trying not to listen in to the conversation, but it was hard with his enhanced senses.

Tony took in a deep breath, gaining control of himself. He was Tony Stark, damn it, he rarely lost control of situations.

Pepper breathed in a deep breath. "Tony, get a hold of yourself! The nurse took Harry down for x-rays since they lost the previous set, and when she came back from the processing lab, and well, it looks like he just wandered off. They called the Dursleys to let them know, but because you don't have custody yet, that is why they didn't tell you. They need a picture for the staff, but his family said they didn't have one."

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of course they don't have a picture of him! I have one I snapped last night with him. I told him I would send it to his phone, but of course he doesn't have one," he seethed. "I'll send one to you. Send Happy to the Dursleys and have him scope them out."

"Got it Tony. What are you going to do now?" Pepper asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

"I am going to find my son."

Tony ended the call and looked at his old friend. James and Sirius had always said that Remus was horrible to play hide and seek with because of his over heightened senses.

"Sorry Tony, I couldn't help but over hear . . ."

"It looks like my son has the same temperament as me. He looks just like I did at that age too."

Tony pulled out a picture on his phone, looking at one of the several pictures he had on him and Harry together. Previously, all he had were pictures of his hot rods, some models on the hot rods, and a couple of architectural pictures of buildings. It made it seem more real, having a picture of his son on his phone.

His son.

He needed to find him.

 _Harry,_ a small boy, too small for his age with messy hair and green eyes.

"Is there a magical way you can locate him?" Tony asked, hoping.

Remus shook his head. "Unless his parents put a tracking charm on him previously, then no. Is his mother a witch?"

"Yes, but she died." Tony closed his eyes, swearing to himself that he would find his and Lily's son. He wouldn't fail him now that he knew that he had a son.

"Tracking charms need to be renewed, and if the mother is no longer with us, then there is no way there would be one on him anyway. Magic has laws, just like physics. Magic won't allow tracking or summoning of humans and sentient beings," Remus explained. "Show me a picture, I know London like the back of my hand. If anything I can at least help you look for him."

"Thanks, I appreciate that. I hope he just got bored waiting, and went to go find a hot nurse to stare at," Tony mumbled.

He pulled up a picture of him and Harry. Pepper had snapped it as the two of them were leafing through Tech Today, the one that Tony was on the cover of. He had signed it and given it to Harry.

Tony heard Remus suck in a deep breath when he saw the picture.

"Later you will tell me how in the world Harry James Potter is _your_ son. The rest of the world believes he is the son of Lily and James Potter," Remus told his old friend. "But, yes we need to find him, as quickly as possible."

Tony nodded, knowing that he owed an explanation to him.

"Where would you have gone? Assuming he wandered off," Remus asked, trying to figure out where to look first.

"I would have snuck into the closest strip bar," Tny snapped.

"He is eight, what would have done at eight?" Remus snapped back forgetting how infuriating it was to deal with the Black men, magical, squib, or mutant.

The stress of it all was finally getting to Tony, his defensive magic rising to the surface. The defensive magic reminding Remus of Tony's powers. He remembered that Howard was strict about the public finding out about Tony's abilities, not wanting his son to be experimented on or labeled as anything other than a genius.

"I would have done just that," He whispered furiously. "I don't know, I didn't exactly have a normal childhood!"

"Just think for a second, where would _Harry_ go. You claim to be a genius, think like one!"

Tony closed his eyes for a second, thinking through everything. "Harry is a neglected at best eight year old, at best. He is a genius who has had to hide from the world. His cousin only let him get through 20 minutes of the expo before his fat ass pushed him into the genetic reader."

Remus nodded, listening through Tony's reasoning.

"Surrey is about an hour away from here, the hospital is only a couple of blocks away. I would have snuck away, came here to see everything I could get my eyes and hands on. I mean, it isn't too often we come to the UK to begin with," Tony kept talking to himself.

Remus started sweeping the crowd. He knew he needed to find Harry soon. It wouldn't do to have him wondering around in open, the contacts he had in the werewolf world still had some of the most loyal looking for Harry.

Remus quickly told Tony his cell number so they could text one another if one or the other found the wayward child.

666666

Tony scanned the crowd quickly trying to figure out where he would go if he was a curious 8 year old child. He remembered loving cars, making his way over to the display.

There on display was the original hover car that Howard had designed that year. It was entitled the "Father, Son Project."

It had floated for 10 seconds before falling on the techs foot.

The blueprints were on display, notes from Howard about the projects, and off on some of the prints, he could see his own contributions. _Not that Howard paid attention to them_. A publicity stunt to try to get more children involved in tech.

The notes were in Tony's hurried print, and looking at them, he made a note to come back to it later. His 8 year old brain had figured out how to make the car work, but the tech was just not there yet at the time.

 _You learn by doing._ Howard always said.

Tony looked down at the designs, seeing that he father had in fact made notations to try it Tony's way when he revisited the project.

 _Enough remembering, you need to find your son._

 _Where would I be if I was a curious 8 year old?_

 _Building a circuit board._

He made his way over to the hand's on portion of the expo. His sharp eyes sweeping back and forth looking for that familiar shock of dark hair.

There was a group of children playing video games, but Harry wasn't there.

"Come on kiddo, where can you be?" Tony muttered.

He kept his eyes sweeping the crown, ignoring the calls of his fans keeping his attention on what he needed too, finding Harry.

He swept one more time, his eyes catching a familiar looking child, tucked away in the corner, messing with the most advanced board that was on display. He quickly fired a text off to Pepper and to Remus. He wanted Happy out in Surrey still gathering information on the people that Harry called family.

Tony stood back watching his son work through the problem. Tony had come up with that particular board himself to power a prosthetic limb. He was waiting to see what Harry would come up with, if he could get it to work.

His son was brilliant.

He worked through the problem methodically, only missing one piece.

Tony walked quickly, not drawing attention to himself to help give Harry some pointers before he got frustrated. He heard his son emit a small sigh; whenever Tony did that it was a sign he got stuck on something and just couldn't get past it.

"You are missing a transducer."

Harry jumped, not expecting someone behind him.

"Mr. Stark!"

"Tony," he corrected gently.

"Tony, I'm sorry I snuck in. I know the school only paid for yesterday, but . . . I will pay you back, I promise." The words rushed out of Harry's mouth. He had no excuse, he knew that the Expo makes money for SI, but he snuck in anyway.

"I don't know how I will come up with the 30 pounds, but I will figure out a way. Maybe I can sneak away and cook for you a couple of times."

Tony put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Harry I am not worried about the money. Hell, I am giving you a lifetime pass. But, if I remember right, you were supposed to be in surgery right now."

Harry looked down at his arm. He didn't know what to say to his idol, Tony Stark. Sometimes when his uncle hurt him real bad, he would be healed over night, other times, it took awhile. Harry didn't quite understand it, but his body seemed to have healed the broken bones overnight, just like . . . .

He wouldn't think of the word, just thinking of it would mean punishment.

Tony looked at his arm. "Can you make a fist? Squeeze my hand tight?" Harry nodded, doing as Tony request. "Doesn't seem broken anymore, but still I would like you to get looked at."

Tony had seen the panic in Harry's eyes and heard the shift in his breathing.

"Harry, breathe with me now," Tony said, keeping his eyes locked on Lily's familiar shade of jade.

"I'm a freak," Harry whispered, before breaking down, sobbing.

Tony instinctually grabbed him, pulling the small child into his arms. "You aren't," he promised, but when he looked down, he saw that Harry was fast asleep.

Tony looked up and saw Remus standing there. "Mild sleeping charm. Is your place close?"

Tony nodded, feeling like an egg had been cracked over his head. "Disillusionment charm. I can still see you with my enhancements, but normal wizards and muggles won't be able to see you. Just keep in mind you can't bump into anyone."

Tony nodded, standing with Harry in his arms. He frowned at the lack of weight on his son, swearing that he would get his vengeance on Harry's so called guardians.

They should have been guarding and protecting them, but in his gut, he knew this wasn't the case.

The small group made their way through the back exit of the expo to avoid the crowds. Lunch time was some of the busiest time with random people coming in to marvel the new, exciting tech coming up. Tony wanted to take some time when he had a chance to go through the expo properly, but right now he knew he had to be with Harry.

666666

Remus followed them through the lobby and up to the penthouse near Hyde Park. He watched as Tony laid the small boy in his bed, closing the door softly behind them.

"Tony?"

"Hungry Remus?" Tony cut him off, not wanting to answer the questions at this point. "What do werewolves eat? Steak, rare?"

"Only closer to the moon, I could do whatever right now. I took up most of my lunch break looking for your son, a boy I thought was James and Lily's son."

"Let me order us a light lunch, and then I will bring you up to speed to what I know, which isn't much," Tony answered, compromising with Remus.

Remus nodded, knowing when to wait. Tony would tell him soon enough.

They spent a couple of minutes in companionable silence, Tony staring out the window at the surrounding park. "Did you know that I own a townhouse not to far from here?"

Remus looked at his friend, trying to figure out where he was going with it. He just shook his head in response.

Tony took a long sip of his whiskey. "Lily and I stayed there for almost nine months back when James was missing. You were on a mission with the werewolves, Sirius was mad with grief and busy looking for James. We took an oath to James on their wedding day to look out for Lily, so when she called less than a year after that, I came."

Remus hung his head, remembering the oath the three of them took on James's wedding day. Peter hadn't been there, his mom had died three days before hand.

"You came when the rest of us didn't," Remus surmised.

Tony nodded. "We were told he was dead, that all they could find was his snapped wand. Lily was catatonic the first night I was here. I just laid in bed and held her. I listened to her sob her heart out. There was nothing I could do for her. I never felt so helpless in my life.

"She laid there for days, and I brought her soup and other things that I could heat up from a can, when she one day came out of the room and said, 'I won't join James in the afterlife because you kept feeding me all this processed food.' She taught me how to cook, and started helping me restructure the UK branch of SI. She needed to stay busy, and I helped. One night, she went out drinking with Marlene and Alice, you remember them? Marlene had the hair you could just grab on to in bed . . ."

Remus cleared his throat bring Tony back to the point.

"She was drunk, and I was up working on a weapon design. She started kissing me, and I kept trying to shrug her off."

"Lily was persistent when she wanted to be," Remus said. Not many people knew, but Remus and Lily had dated in fourth year, briefly. She nagged and nagged him to kiss her. Remus was scared because of his curse, but Lily was determined to show him that she knew better. Lily had the kindest heart. And Remus knew though deep down that she belonged with James, just like his heart belonged to somebody else. Their romance had only lasted a brief month at the most with them staying friends.

"One thing lead to another," Tony whispered. "She never told me about having a child, I just found out through Fortis when Harry was pushed into the machine. If I had known about him I would have never allowed him to go to his aunts."

"Do you want him?" Remus asked, he looked at his friend continuing quickly, "I wanted him. I saw him on accident one day, I was at a bookshop where his aunt was, and I followed them as far as I could back into Surrey. Once I got too close to his house, I was redirected. There are powerful wards and enchantments on the house keeping creatures and dark wizards away. Since I am a creature . . . I saw the bruises, I wanted to help, I begged the headmaster to let me take him. I was denied. So I bought a house close to Surrey in hopes I could just keep an eye out on Harry, but I only saw him from a distance just a few times. I worried that if I tried to make a scene that it would be worse for him."

Tony nodded, understanding. He knew there was no way that the laws would allow Remus to take in Harry, but at least Remus had tried.

"He's my son. He's Lily's child, and further more I would have taken him even if he wasn't mine."

A pounding at the door broke the conversation effectively. Lunch came, effectively making the two men take a break from the heavy conversations and just planning on their next steps.

One thing was clear to Tony. Remus himself was very intelligent, and someone he needed to help with Harry.

"Can bones heal magically?" Tony asked as he picked at his salad. He hard ordered grilled chicken and vegetables for Harry, knowing that he could heat that up later on.

"Not most of the time, it is an odd case, and most of the time they don't heal properly. A child's healing magic only kicks in when there is severe problems or the problem has been ignored causing magic to protect the child." Remus sighed, knowing that Harry was probably neglected for so long that his magic started taking over. "We need to get him to a healer so he can properly be looked at, and hopefully some of the damage can be reversed."

Tony nodded. "Do you have a good one?"

Remus looked thoughtful for a minute. He had almost instinctually said Madame Pomfrey, but with Hogwarts in session, he didn't want Harry exposed too the wizarding world yet.

"She is a good friend of mine, has been taking care of me since, well . . ." Remus pointed to the bite mark he received as a child. "She is discrete and will not break the confidentiality vow she took."

He nodded, firing a text to Pepper to cancel the rest of his life at the moment. Tony needed to make Harry a priority.

"Now, I guess the question is what now?" Remus asked.

Tony chewed thoughtfully on his salad, running through multiple scenarios at a time. He wouldn't have heard Harry enter the kitchen if it hadn't been so quiet at the moment.

"I'll leave. I am sorry for tainting you with my freakishness," Harry said quietly making his way toward the door.

"Well, if you are a freak, then I must be one too," Tony told him, bringing out Harry's lunch. "I got you lunch, and I hope you will eat it and join me. I have some things I need to tell you . . ."

 **AN: I know, horrible place to leave it, but no real cliffhanger. I will be posting a new story soon, Captain America and Tony has Harry's parents, one that is a ficception inspired by njchrispatrick** ** _Darkness of Birth_** **. Keep an eye out on that and check his stuff out. Also I have another one floating in my head using a spin on Thor being the god of fertility. But with that being said, I will try to be more faithful on updating. Most of this was finished in the beginning of September but got erased due to computer error.**

 **As always reviews rock my socks. Leave me some inspiring words or ideas you want incorporated if you have ides.**

 **Thanks!**


End file.
